“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

(Popular misquote of "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.")”

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. —Maya Angelou”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”

Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter

“Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can't reduce me to a set of influences.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

“You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude
toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather
than allowing it to master you.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

“You can decide what you want to eat for dinner, you can decide to go away for the weekend, and you can decide what clothes you’re going to wear in the morning, but when it comes to artistic things, there’s never a rhyme or reason. It’s, like, they just happen. And they happen when they happen.”

Meat Loaf (1947) American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor

“if you don't have peace, it isn't because someone took it from you; you gave it away. You cannot always control what happens to you, but you can control what happens in you.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

“Pain is an event. It happens to you, and you deal with it in whatever way you can.”

Hugh Laurie book The Gun Seller

“What can happen in a few minutes changes you forever.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

“Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it.”

Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie book Americanah